Leicester Lions v Edinburgh Monarchs

REPORT Saturday 13th April 2013, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

With a 27-point lead we went to Leicester feeling that we were very strong favourites to qualify. After seven heats, we were wondering if that assessment was wrong.

No problems in the first few heats – Craig won heat 1 easily with Derek rounding Jan Graversen to take a point. Jozsef stormed off with heat 2, in which Marcel passed Blackbird on the fourth bend only for his bike to cut out at the next corner.

We lost a 5-1 in heat 3 against the top Lions’ pair of Bjerre and Doolan, but Claus and Jozsef shared heat 4 behind Magnus Karlsson, and at 13-11 down we had things under control.

We expect so much of Craig, it’s always a surprise when he has a bad heat, but he lifted on gate 4 and couldn’t catch the Bjerre/Doolan duo who made it 10 points from 2 rides.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, heat 6 went badly too. Marcel stopped at the gate and was excluded on 2 minutes, Jozsef stopped as the tapes went up and Claus was beaten by Nieminen and Graversen in spite of a strong effort to catch them.

On the first corner of heat 7, a wide turn seemed likely to carry Max Fricke to the front, but Magnus Karlsson moved over and Max fell. The referee took the side of the more experienced rider. The rerun was lost 4-2 and now we were 12 down on the night.

We needed a strong man to stop the rot. Step forward Derek Sneddon. He gated on Graversen and gritted his teeth as the Dane threw everything at him. Graversen even edged ahead at one pount, but Derek came back round him for an important win.

Then Claus repeated his Friday night win over Bjerre and Doolan to stop their run, with Marcel adding a point when Bjerre ran too wide. That meant we only needed 10 points from 6 heats to go through.

We only got one of them in heat 10, but Craig was back in winning mood for heat 11, a 4-2, and we were nearly there. Jozsef came into heat 12 and teamed with Theo for a 5-1, and when Craig and Claus swept to another 5 in heat 13, we wondered what we had been worried about.

We saw a great effort by Max in heat 14 to almost catch Doolan, and finished with a 4-2 for an ultimately impressive 44-point score.

Full Result Details